How does this chord feel?
In teaching students to effectively recognize inversions of dominant seventh chords, I settled on basically working with them to generate a vibes list. How does a V65 chord make you feel, compared to a V7 chord? Well, it’s uplifting, more unstable, slightly darker to one pair of ears (lighter to mine).
It doesn’t matter if you and I agree on the vibes. What matters is that you associate the flavor of the chord. Like learning to recognize people’s faces, once you’ve got it it stays intact regardless of context.
In my head, I have chords that feel steely, others that feel angry, contented, joyful. Chords that feel like home and chords that have wanderlust. These associations help me to use them effectively in telling a musical story, and they help me in rehearsal, assessing accuracy.
We made list for each inversion of a V7 chord, and by the end, the students were much more confident in telling the difference between them. That’s a win! Both for the class, and for their musicianship wherever it takes them down the road.